This disc collects
three American cello concertos in contrasting
styles. Two - the least known - were
written within years of each other.
The Barber and the Ranjbaran are in
three movements: fast-slow-fast - across
just under half an hour. The Chen Yi
is in a single movement lasting about
fifteen minutes. The latter stands out
in this company in embracing a wide-ranging
avant-garde palette. The Barber is typically
neo-romantic but then, perhaps surprisingly
- unless you know his Persian Trilogy
- so is the Ranjbaran.

The Barber here receives
one of its most successful readings
ever. It benefits greatly from Tobias’s
sturdy singing tone. It luminously conveys
the impression of amber-depths even
when the instrument is called on to
sing high in its register - as towards
the end of the first movement. What
a lovely work it is too! That chanting
forwardly-mobile theme in the first
movement is lovingly shaped and weighted
and counterpointed with a singing ‘release’
melody at 10:20. After a dreamily
rhapsodic andante comes a playful chase
of a finale which in its lightness of
heart reminded me of the third movement
of the Finzi Cello Concerto (6:55).
As a work it ‘flat-shares’ with the
Dvořák concerto and is closer to
the juiciness and yield of the
Barber Violin Concerto than to his comparatively
‘dry’ Piano Concerto. This is a very
fine performance which ‘spoke’ to me
more strongly than the ones by Yo-Yo
Ma (CBS-Sony), Raphael Wallfisch (Chandos),
Stephen Isserlis (Virgin Classics),
Ralph Kirshbaum (RCA) and Wendy Warner
(Naxos). There isn’t a poor performance
among this group but Tobias’s steady
‘speaking’ quality and ardour together
with a richly detailed recording image
make this truly memorable.

The Barber concerto
makes considerable play of the higher
registers of the instrument. This is
no surprise as the dedicatee and soloist
at the Boston premiere was Raya Garbousova
who had a reputation for her facility
in that region. Barber wrote his Cello
Concerto for Garbousova at the commission
of the Koussevitsky Foundation.

The Pearl reissue of
Zara Nelsova’s recording of the concerto
(the first commercial recording) has
been reviewed
by MusicWeb

The concerto by Chen
Yi honours Eleanor Roosevelt’s long
and ultimately successful struggle to
get the United National to adopt the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Chen Yi was born in China, in Guangzhou.
She emigrated to the USA in the face
of the Cultural Revolution. She has
studied in Beijing with Wu Zuqiang,
with Alexander Goehr and at Columbia
University. The cello is in almost constant
song: beguiler, protester and persuader.
The orchestral tissue moves in kaleidoscopic
richness with discordant eruptions (11:30),
whispers and breathing effects and a
recurrent brass theme that sounds close
to the ragged trumpet calls in Petrushka.
It’s the toughest work on the disc and
requires several listens before it begins
to get under your skin.

Ranjbaran began
his musical studies at the age of nine
at the Tehran Music Conservatory. After
graduation he travelled to the USA to
pursue his studies as a violinist at
the Indiana University. After this he
went on to the Juilliard where his teachers
were David Diamond, Vincent Persichetti
and Joseph Schwantner. We know from
his Persian Trilogy
(on Delos - a review will follow) that
Ranjbaran is comfortably at home in
the tonal world moving seamlessly around
a spectrum marked out by Rimsky-Korsakov,
Griffes, Dvořák and Walton. In
the Thomas Jefferson-inspired
Cello Concerto the Russian-Oriental
strand is deeply subdued. This work
has a reflective but articulate soul
giving itself up in song. There is a
touching cantorial first movement that
also has a euphoric buoyancy of the
sort I normally associate with the Finzi
finale. That first movement can be played
alone with a narration using words by
Thomas Jefferson. The lightness of being
in the first movement returns for the
flighty yet by no means shallow finale.
This is music that whoops and dances
on its toes with the effervescence of
vintage Copland and Moeran. The second
movement may be performed separately
as the Elegy for Cello and Orchestra
and appeared by itself in 1998 again
played by Tobias. The concerto is recorded
by the same orchestra, conductor and
soloist that premiered it in 2001. It’s
one of those recordings where you can
easily detect how much the soloist is
revelling in the experience of making
the music speak.

The English-only notes
are extensive supporting a CD that is
one of the strengths of the little known
Albany catalogue.

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